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ENGEL Think Thin

"Think Thin" – this is the motto of the specialist symposium in Shanghai to which ENGEL is inviting decision makers from the laptop industry and their suppliers. On 8 and 9 March this year, the injection moulding machine manufacturer and automation expert will be demonstrating, in cooperation with partners, how additional laptop lid size and weight savings can be achieved. "In future, our injection moulding machines will be capable of producing laptop lids with wall thicknesses of just about one millimetre," promises Heinz Rasinger, Head of the ENGEL Teletronics Business Unit. The typical wall thicknesses today are between 1.7 and 2.3 mm. With the weight and overall thickness of a laptop playing an increasingly important role, the challenge for the decorated plastic packaging is to undercut these values. Extremely thin wall thicknesses are relevant in particular to laptop lids, which need to be manufactured with a UV hardened label including scratch-proof coating using a technique that reduces torsion to the maximum extent.


Above: Minimum wall thicknesses - laptop lid with label and UV hardened, scratch-proof coating

During the event in Shanghai, the new technology developed by ENGEL in collaboration with partners will be demonstrated live on an ENGEL duo machine with a clamping force of 500 tonnes. The machine is equipped with a compression package and in-mould labelling. The label is insert-placed and the finished parts are taken off by an ENGEL viper 40 type robot from the machine manufacturer's own linear robot programme. The injection-compression mould was supplied by In-mold Technology in Suzhou. Further development partners of ENGEL in this project include Bayer Material Science, Pröll, Böhler Edelstahl and Mold-Masters.

The symposium will be taking place at the ENGEL MACHINERY premises at Shanghai's Xinzhuang Industrial Park. All keynotes will be presented in English with simultaneous translation into Chinese. Besides decision makers from the laptop industry, representatives of other industries that require decorated thin-walled parts with quality surfaces are also invited to attend.

Registration and further details click here.